First day of soccer

We had a very hot first day to the youth soccer season with the temperature close to 100 degrees for the afternoon game at 1:20. By 3:00, things were cooling off fast and our second game was much more comfortable and successful. We lost the first game 4-2, but won the second 9-0. No games next weekend due to Labor Day.

In a first for me, I have my photos from both games online on the first day of the season, this time, in two forms. One is in the Gallery photo album format here while the other two are here and here using Simple Viewer. I prefer the Simple Viewer interface, but the size of the images is smaller and there is more work involved in putting that one together. It may be time to try out Slideshow Pro which creates a very nice photo browser.

iPhone unlocked

I heard this story on the radio this morning and also just saw it online. The iPhone has been unlocked, meaning you could buy one and use it with whatever carrier you choose, not just AT&T, and not just in the US. You wonder if Apple will try to stop it through software updates or legal action, or both. I don't have an iPhone and don't plan to get one due to my lack of interest in phones in general, but I might be more inclined to consider one if I didn't have to continue to go with AT&T. My contract expires next month and I look forward to getting poor service from some other carrier for a couple of years.

pe.com and new media - not a good impression

Newspapers have to adjust to changing times and competition from television and the web. Some do it better than others. PE.com is a local paper which has added some new media elements to their website, but you have to wonder what they were thinking. I checked out their video clip -- 10 questions with Stanford's Toby Gerhart. The video starts with a short and loud car commercial for Corona Chevrolet which is readable and has some motion graphics which look fine. Once the interview with Toby Gerhart starts however, we enter the dimension of overcompressed video which is so overcompressed that some of the questions, show in white on a black background, are completely unreadable. It's also impossible to see Toby's face because of the compression artifacts. The video is such poor quality that I wouldn't go back and watch another one. At least it plays directly on the web page.

The other new media feature on pe.com which is poorly done is the "podcast" feature available for every story. The first time I saw this I wondered how they could afford to create podcasts for all the stories each day. The answer is that they don't. The "podcasts" actually use speech synthesis to read the text of the story. Not something I'd go out of my way to listen to, but it might serve a purpose for someone who is visually impaired. Better than nothing but not much better.

Bathroom conversation

Last week we took a trip to Catalina island from Dana Point. Expensive and short, but it was fun. However, I had an encounter in the restroom prior to the boat ride which was very bizarre. I was in the only stall in the men's room and the bathroom was otherwise empty. Some guy came in and tried to open the stall door by shaking it. Then he said "I guess someone's in there" to himself. He waited about 30 seconds then announced loudly, "hey can you speed it up in there?" I ignored him only because I couldn't imagine that he was talking to me. 15 seconds later he yelled again "you need to speed it up in there! People are waiting." I don't think I've ever spoken to someone from a bathroom stall before, but I said "I've been in there for 2 minutes. Wait your turn." I left about a minute later and shook my head as I walked past him. I'm assuming that he had some issues which were not going to be resolved through any discussion I could have had with him.

White supremacists have to pay up (maybe)

Eight years ago I was on hold on the telephone waiting to talk with a real estate agent in Temecula when the local news came on. It mentioned that a number of local men were arrested in a white supremacist attack on a black man. Hearing that made me wonder if I really wanted to move to Temecula. Today, eight years later, that case was in the news again as the convicted attackers and their families have been ordered to pay the victim restitution. Who knows if he'll ever get the $5.6 million, but I hope he does. Fortunately, there have not been too many more cases like this around here recently, although there have been some.

Oakland Crimespotting site

I don't live in Oakland any more, but I still think the Oakland Crimespotting website is a very interesting use of technology. This is the kind of things that police departments or departments of public affairs could do in large cities to keep citizens informed. I know that I would like to be able to get an RSS feed or email updates related to crime in the places I live and work.

Gothscene.com for goths looking for dates

Where I live, in Temecula, there isn't much in the way of subcultures, just lots of conservatives and their families. Goths are few and far between, so if I was a goth looking for goth dating, I think it would be tough to find suitable goth guys or girls. Gothscene is a dating site for people looking for goths. It's free to join and to create a profile with a description and image and contact information. Check out the descriptions or photos and you can send a message or a flirt when you find someone interesting. The descriptions on this site are much more interesting than the ones I see on other dating sites I've looked at. I don't know if that has to do with the goth theme or not, but the people here are interesting and you may not run into them every day, but you can easily find them online at gothscene.

Deposition Day tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I have to give a deposition in a lawsuit my wife and I filed in regard to an auto accident 2.5 years ago. We tried to negotiate with the insurance company but they never made a reasonable offer to settle the case considering the medical bills and other costs associated with the accident. That was a big disappointment. Now we have lawyers involved and more money. I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow and I'm trying to make sure I have all the facts straight from something that happened a relatively long time ago. Since the deposition is given under oath, I want to be sure I don't contradict anything I said in the statement I already submitted.

PC laptop

We have almost all Macs in our house -- 1 Dell PC I bought 4 years ago is the exception. I think we have 8 or 9 Macs although not all are in use any longer. My sons like to play Runescape on the PC, so one of them decided he wanted a laptop. The lowest end Macbook would be close to $1000 new, so that didn't seem like a good option. Another possibility is to replace the hard drive in a 12 inch G4 Powerbook. I already have the drive, so there would only be the time involved in doing the work, something I've been putting off for months. A third option is a PC laptop. There are quite a few of them at around 500 - $600, but in most cases they don't seem like they would do a whole lot more than the G4 laptop. The other thing is that these PC laptops don't seem to come with much in the way of software. Most have Windows Vista Home Premium, although some have the Basic edition. Added to that is the trialware and usually a limited version of Microsoft Works. Not much of a deal. I think you get more with a Mac laptop, although I could download freeware/OSS like Picasa and Open Office and get what would be reasonable on the PC. It just seems like you don't get too much for the low price.

Souplantation vs Fresh Choice

Souplantation and Fresh Choice are very similar cafeteria style restaurants. They offer salad, soup, pizza, bread and desserts for one price. Eat as much as you like. At one time, both had locations in Southern California, but at that time, I lived in Northern California. Around the time we moved to SoCal, Fresh Choice closed all their SoCal locations, so now we only get to go there on visits to NorCal. While they were very similar a few years ago, at least in my memory, now there is a huge difference to me. Fresh Choice has more choices, better quality food, and a nicer eating environment. Souplantation has fewer choices and they've raised their prices regularly without adding much to the menu. For vegetarians, Fresh Choice is much better. The only problem is that the closest one is 350 miles away.

Runescape obsession

Online role playing games are very open ended, so they lend themselves to lots and lots of time spent playing the games. World of Warcraft, of course, is the biggest, and seems to cater to a more adult audience. Runescape has a younger set of players, including both of my sons. I think they would play it 24 hours a day if they could, as would many of their friends, all of whom are male. What's been different this summer with Runescape is the number of real life friends who have tried to scam my sons as well as the bad luck they've had trusting anyone who they've met online through the game. It doesn't surprise me that people try to trick others to get ahead in the game, but the outright stealing and dishonesty among real life friends does bother me. Dealing with people online in an environment where it's difficult to establish trust is an invitation for people to be dishonest if they are so inclined, but when the people are known to you in real life, it's a different story.

iMovie 08 tutorials

Jim Heid may have more to write about on his blog now that iLife 08 is out. Or maybe he'll be too busy working on his book. Either way he's got an insider perspective on what's new and what's out in iMovie 08. Plus he helped with the tutorials on the new version.

iMovie 08

I read David Pogue's review of iMovie '08 in the NY Times. He says it should be called something else since it's not an evolution of iMovie but a different application which serves a different purpose. Reading the comments on Pogue's article and elsewhere, there do seem to be quite a few people who really like the new iMovie. It works with hard drive and flash media based camcorders and does seem to be aimed at a more casual kind of user who wants to put something together quickly. Others have pointed out the lack of audio editing and timeline features and maybe it is the case that Apple wants people to use Final Cut Express for those features. For me, the ease of use with iMovie kept me from spending any time on Final Cut Express. I could do what I wanted to do, for the most part, with iMovie, so I never bothered to learn FCE.

Fake Steve Jobs aka that guy at Fortune magazine even chimes in with some commentary about the Pogue review. It does make you wonder if Pogue will continue to get the insider stuff from Apple. He should, because at least he's honest with his opinion.

Mattresses from galleryfurniture.com

Furniture stores tend to be very large because they have to display lots of items to attract lots of customers. My town has very few furniture stores, but shopping online is a nice alternative. Lots of choices that you can browse through very quickly makes it a good experience. If you are looking for a mattress, the Tempur-Pedic brand is one I recommend. I've had a Tempur-Pedic mattress for about five years now and I really like it. The memory foam has a unique feeling to it and although it's heavier than a regular mattress, I find it to be much more comfortable. I've gotten so used to it that I sometimes have trouble sleeping on hotel beds which are often very firm. Gallery Furniture has a wide selection of Tempur-Pedic mattresses as well as lots of other furniture for any room in your house and they offer same day delivery within 100 miles and next day delivery within 500 miles of their stores! That's pretty amazing. At most places I shop for large items I'm happy to get my stuff within a week. You can also order from them if you live even farther away and they'll deliver on purchases greater than $20,000. If you are interested in Houston furniture, visit the Gallery Furniture store in person.

iMovie plugins

Among the many strange choices made with iMovie '08 is the lack of plugins for the program. I have a few plugins for previous version of the program and always wanted a few more if I could afford them. It's not clear whether or not there is a way to create plugins for iMovie '08 or not. The other thing I'm not seeing is a price cut on the plugins for the older versions of iMovie. If that software isn't going to work with the new version, the customer base for the plugins probably isn't getting any larger, so a nice discount on the plugins might spur some sales.

Educational price of iLife 08 not such a bargain

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I recall paying about $49 for previous versions of Apple's iLife with the educational discount. iLife '08 came out recently and the list price is $79 while the educational price is $71. Doesn't seem like much of a deal really. The same is true for the iWork package.

It sounds like you can purchase iWork for $49 by downloading the trial version and then buying a serial number. I think I will wait and see if they carry the boxed versions of this software at the campus bookstore when I go back to work in a couple of weeks. In the past they have offered an even better deal than the educational discount.

What happened to sports?

There is hardly a professional sport in the US right now that doesn't have some kind of scandal. Baseball has the never ending steroids issue with Barry Bonds getting ready to break the home run mark. Basketball has the cheating referee and football has the Michael Vick dogfighting. The Tour de France has its own doping scandals, with riders dropping out daily it seems and even the UFC had a steroid scandal, as did the WWE which may technically not be a sport but it's an athletic entertainment event at least. NASCAR has issues from time to time with modified engines, although the drivers don't take drugs to do better. Golf seems okay. I don't know about tennis. Maybe this is a good time for soccer to become more popular in the US, with David Beckham arriving and no scandals so far.

Simple Viewer

I like the slideshow that you can create using Simple Viewer. It looks good, works well and is easy to use, plus with the right tool you can customize it to a certain degree. It's free and the free version does the job very well. I saw it first on the Oakland Tribune newspaper site and was a little surprised that they use the free version. Actually I was a little more surprised that the Oakland Tribune was still around, but couldn't they afford to pay the $45 for the pro version and add some custom features?

Year round football

I never noticed it until this week, but pro and college football don't have any weeks off on ESPN now. They have the NFL Live show on all year. It seems like the NFL draft was way overblown in terms of coverage, but after that it hasn't slowed down. You have mini camp, trade talk, the lead up to the pre-season and then the season and playoffs. It pretty much never ends. I guess the same is true with the NBA and with soccer worldwide.

Tire pressure

My tire pressure was way too low on the front two tires of my Civic Hybrid. I inflated the tires this morning and although I seemed to get better mileage before I got on the freeway, the overall result wasn't that different. I got 58 mpg on the 40 mile trip to work. I think I should be closer to 70 on the way home, assuming I can find a truck to draft behind.